Consider carefully before you say a hard word to a man, but never let a chance to say a good one go by. Praise judiciously bestowed is money invested.
Never learn anything about your men except from themselves. A good manager needs no detectives, and the fellow who can’t read human nature can’t manage it. The phonograph records of a fellow’s character are lined in his face, and a man’s days tell the secrets of his nights.
Be slow to hire and quick to fire. The time to discover incompatibility of temper and curl-papers is before the marriage ceremony. But when you find that you’ve hired the wrong man, you can’t get rid of him too quick. Pay him an extra month, but don’t let him stay another day. A discharged clerk in the office is like a splinter in the thumb—a centre of soreness. There are no exceptions to this rule, because there are no exceptions to human nature.
Never threaten, because a threat is a promise to pay that it isn’t always convenient to meet, but if you don’t make it good it hurts your credit. Save a threat till you’re ready to act, and then you won’t need it. In all your dealings, remember that to-day is your opportunity; to-morrow some other fellow’s.
Keep close to your men. When a fellow’s sitting on top of a mountain he’s in a mighty dignified and exalted position, but if he’s gazing at the clouds, he’s missing a heap of interesting and important doings down in the valley. Never lose your dignity, of course, but tie it up in all the red tape you can find around the office, and tuck it away in the safe. It’s easy for a boss to awe his clerks, but a man who is feared to his face is hated behind his back. A competent boss can move among his men without having to draw an imaginary line between them, because they will see the real one if it exists.
Besides keeping in touch with your office men, you want to feel your salesmen all the time. Send each of them a letter every day so that they won’t forget that we are making goods for which we need orders; and insist on their sending you a line every day, whether they have anything to say or not. When a fellow has to write in six times a week to the house, he uses up his explanations mighty fast, and he’s pretty apt to hustle for business to make his seventh letter interesting.
Right here I want to repeat that in keeping track of others and their faults it’s very, very important that you shouldn’t lose sight of your own. Authority swells up some fellows so that they can’t see their corns; but a wise man tries to cure his own while remembering not to tread on his neighbors’.
“A good many salesmen have an idea that buyers
are only interested in funny stories.”